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July 20, 2012

Wealthy Investors Adopting Mobile Technology

Computers still dominate for finance tasks; Spectrem president calls for better mobile apps

Wealthy investors are taking up mobile technology in increasing numbers, the Spectrem Group found in a survey released Thursday.

Tablet use especially has grown among wealthy investors. Those with at least $100,000 in net worth increased their tablet use from 16% in June 2011 to 34%. Tablet use among millionaires grew from 20% to 37%, and ultrahigh-net-worth investors’ tablet use, also 20% in June 2011, grew to 41%.

Tablets are more popular than phones for online tasks like paying bills and accessing account information. Among the mass affluent and millionaires, investors spend about 9 hours per week on their phones, not including talking and texting, compared with nearly 12 hours on their tablets. Ultrahigh-net-worth investors spent slightly less time on their phones, but tablet use was about 12 hours per week.

Still, computers are the No. 1 tool for finance-related tasks. Investors spend between 22.8 and 24 hours per week on the computer.

George Walper Jr., president of Spectrem, suggested in a statement that “more relevant applications, especially finance-related ones,” would lead investors away from their computers. "At the top of the wealthy investors' app wish list is the ability to aggregate their financial information from multiple sources,” he said.

Walper noted that traditional media are still wealthy investors’ primary sources of financial information, but added that as younger investors accumulate wealth, that is likely to change.